The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq - The Alastair Campbell Diaries (45 page)

TB called a few times from his visit to East Anglia, pretty perked up at the reception he was getting. He was pretty exercised re the PCC. I had a good chat with Douglas. I was very frank re GB, said he had been a nightmare to deal with of late and I was reaching the point where I couldn’t be bothered with it. He agreed to be a conduit if it was helpful. On the TB/GB front, he felt it would only work if Philip and I were properly involved. I said I thought the Eds were a problem too because they were constantly pushing GB in a different direction. He said he hoped he could help there too.

Guy Black came in. I went through his various Black Rod meetings. The
Spectator
and the
Mail on Sunday
, post Guy’s meeting with Black Rod, had gone from wanting mediation to wanting adjudication. Guy had told him he didn’t want to receive his letter. Black Rod said he wanted the truth to come out. As Guy said, it was inconsistent, and a lot of it irrelevant and it would lead to a massive public row. Both RW and Jeremy said they totally believed Clare Sumner on this. I left it with Guy that we would either go to adjudication or settle through an exchange of letters. I had a quick lunch with Andy Marr at Orso’s [Italian restaurant, Covent Garden] and back to work on Sixsmith. The cheque was stopped for now though he would almost certainly get his money in the end. Godric was in an absolute rage about it.

Start of the World Cup. Mottram had a 10am deadline for paying the cheque to Sixsmith. But on the back of a story in
The
Times
, he got counsel’s advice that there would appear to be a breach of agreement
if the story was true and therefore we had good reason not to pay it. Sixsmith had obviously been told that I was trying to stop the cheque. He started to put stuff out over the weekend about me running a smear campaign against him. I was also trying to work through the PCC situation. Guy Black called and I said I would try to get TB to a position of an agreed exchange of letters. It was going to be messy but the sooner we were out of it the better. TB was in a real fury about it. The idea that Clare [Sumner] would get on to him [Black Rod] and try and get us a bigger role – it just doesn’t merit a moment’s thought.

Later, TB called to say he had agreed Michael Wills [Labour MP and GB adviser] should be minister in charge of the criminal justice service IT systems! I really couldn’t be bothered with it but I eventually spoke to Michael at 6 to agree a line to put out on PA [Press Association], but it transpired that PA didn’t think it was a story and then Joe Murphy [
Evening Standard
] got on to it and turned it into a TB/GB row splash.

Dominated by England vs Sweden – good first half, dreadful second half. A short letter came through on the fax from Sixsmith – ‘Alastair, we haven’t spoken since February 21. Perhaps we should.’

Michael Wills came on to say the
Mail on Sunday
story re him and a row between TB and GB must have come from Number 10. I thought he’d been wound up by GB and I gave him very short shrift. GB’s other claim, that Peter M was behind it, was ludicrous. Sixsmith sent a long letter to Mottram, copied to me, with all manner of claims about us smearing him. I dictated a response to Mottram which stuck to the facts. Darling had an interview in the
Telegraph
which was taken as a hit on [John] Birt, who went into a really precious tantrum. Jeremy called to say we needed to be very nice about Birt, which we were, and could I get AD to speak to Birt. I was helping David Miliband with his first big [ministerial] speech for Thursday.

Darling called me after speaking to Birt, said it was the most extraordinary call he had ever made. ‘I said I wanted to have a discussion with him about transport policy and he said it was very important that I built a bridge to him. He was unbelievably difficult.’ I did a note for TB suggesting how we take forward the PCC case
and talked it through with Guy Black. Then, with all the family and the neighbours out to St James’s Park to watch the Golden Jubilee concert on the big screen. There was a fantastic atmosphere and the Royals had handled the whole week brilliantly. It was interesting to see how much more enthusiastic older and middle-aged people were compared to the kids. Certainly for our lot, the Jubilee meant pretty much nothing compared to the World Cup.

Another bank holiday, so a quiet day, and I felt sorry for TB having to go to St Paul’s for the Jubilee service. Then back to the Guildhall where he had to make a speech about the Queen. Not easy, getting the balance right, trying to say something significant whilst also trying to avoid just sounding like a creep. He had written a passage comparing her commitment to that of a cleaner or a doctor, which didn’t ring true. He asked me to work on a passage about the reception she got at the concert when she walked on, which had certainly been impressive. Fiona and I were both worried, having been there, that there would be a lot of comment on the reception for him which had been cool by comparison, especially when the cameras panned to him as Ben Elton [comedian and author] made a joke about the NHS and transport being no better than when she first became Queen. What a tit. TB had said to Prince Andrew we could have done without the Ben Elton jokes and Andrew said surely politicians just have to live with that kind of thing. It was clear every time he talked about it, though, that TB liked the Queen, rated and respected her but he felt that Charles’ speech, the way he framed the argument about traditional, the un-pc second verse of the national anthem, was meant to be a dig at us.
³⁶

TB was seeing [Hosni] Mubarak and Rumsfeld at Number 10, and I wanted to get up to see my dad in this relatively quiet period. I took the boys up and watched Ireland draw with Germany with him. Also working on [David] Miliband’s speech.

The
Independent
led on an email which was misrepresented as an attempt to dig dirt on Pam Warren [survivor of the 1999 Paddington
rail crash]. AD wanted to put out an apology from Dan Corry [former special adviser to Stephen Byers] and from Byers straight away, as a way of showing this had nothing to do with him and he condemned it.
³⁷
He also wanted to publish the emails which in fact showed something different to what had been reported. I was a bit worried we would set a precedent, and also reluctant to be issuing apologies for things that had not been done. Why shouldn’t political parties try to check if there are any political affiliations of people who suddenly become part of public debate? I consulted TB at Chequers and he felt that AD should do what he wanted and it was probably right. The facts were actually on our side but that didn’t stop the papers going into total blah overdrive. Mike White pointed out to me that we had now definitely passed the point where newspapers allowed facts to get in the way of a desire to hit the government.

I had pretty much finalised an exchange of letters with the PCC. TB added two points – first, an even more staunch defence of Clare Sumner, and second, we reserve the right to come back on this if any of the papers suggested that he had tried to muscle in on the arrangements. I took a very chatty call from JP but he was pretty menacing as well about the planned Third Way event [policy discussion organised by Peter Mandelson] coming up tomorrow, saying that ‘If it’s a beautiful people, New Labour, pointy head, Mekon kind of thing, there’ll be a backlash and TB should know that.’ He said there were people in Number 10 who never bothered to think about him or the party in this and he wasn’t happy. Trying to play down its importance, I said I wasn’t even going to it and it was a Peter M, Andrew Adonis [head of the Policy Unit] thing, which got him going even more, divisive and stupid, chickens would come home to roost, etc.

Dan Corry was tracked down at the World Cup in Tokyo and we agreed a statement for him to put out as an apology. The
Independent
had a partial account of our dealings with AD yesterday, presenting them as Number 10 not happy with an over-the-top apology.

I was trying to get the Sundays focused on TB’s welfare speech next week. The Corry email died down pretty quickly with a few pieces saying it was actually an OK thing to do. I had dreadful hay fever and was feeling a bit ground down again. I was reaching the point when I really couldn’t be bothered listening to the news, reading the papers or talking to journalists. TB was at the Third Way conference with Clinton et al. and seemed to think it was worthwhile. I think he was surprised I didn’t go.

I briefed John Reid for
Frost
. He had been at the Clinton/Peter M wonkathon and said he had had a terrific conversation with Clinton re Ireland. JR was totally up for going for the press, so we had now reached a stage where all communication was dismissed as spin, all funding was sleaze, all attacks were smears. Gwyneth Dunwoody [Labour MP] did an interview saying she had been smeared. IDS was on the broadcasts really going for us. There was a real nastiness and poison about where we were at the moment and I wasn’t quite sure how we dealt with it.

TB came back from his weekend policy wonking seeming very up and energised. Clinton had been through something similar to the attacks we were getting. His view was that they went on character because they couldn’t win on policy. The challenge was to use that to build a position of confidence and strength. The challenge for modern politicians was understanding change, developing and implementing policy but also shaping and winning arguments. He said we were seen around the world as probably the best and most successful modern left-of-centre party in terms of winning and doing, but we rarely came over as being confident in our own position. TB felt too there was definitely something about people on the left, that sometimes power scared them, or troubled them, and they started to believe the message from the right, that actually they were the people best able to handle power.

The welfare speech wasn’t badly set up. A couple of pieces of spin by media. First my letter to the
Indy
was used on page 1 for a ‘We will learn lessons’ headline, burying the fact that it was about their story being wrong. Also, the
Sunday Express
made-up spin on TB’s speech was described by the broadcasters, without any knowledge at all, as our handiwork. I finalised the exchanges with the PCC, toned
them down a bit at their request, and then, after Guy Black told Black Rod that it was on, the rumour mill started. Then a truly pathetic meeting with Mavis MacDonald [permanent secretary, Cabinet Office], Jeremy and Godric to agree what to do re Sixsmith. TB told us not to go against the legal advice. We should seek to establish what we could legitimately do to get the assurances we sought and if the QC thought we were not within our rights we should not go beyond that. It was pretty clear everyone just wanted shot of it. We left it that we would see what he was prepared to do by way of assurances but the reality was if the answer was nothing, they were going to shell out anyway. As I said to TB, he would get his cheque and then there would be nothing to stop him building a career attacking a government that paid it to him. The message to everyone in government would be fall out with elected ministers and you can make a lot of money out of it. TB said it may be unjust, but it was time to leave it.

I told the Monday morning meeting there was more departmental leaking than ever, there was a culture of acceptance of it and it meant we looked weak. On the press generally, Charles C wanted to campaign in defence of politics. Everyone agreed we were being damaged by all of this, as Clare Short so kindly pointed out on the
Westminster Hour
last night, and none of us were really clear how to get out of it.

TB went off for the welfare speech wearing his glasses for the first time delivering a speech. On his return, he said that whenever he was talking about policy, he felt strong and confident. It was dealing with all the shit that ground us down. The key to re-engagement was as much about policy as anything – particularly public services but also red tape, crime, causes of crime. Godric was also feeling worn out, ground down. Philip was worried that TB and GB were in very different places and we had to get them closer together. The new media environment was definitely something in which we had to agree and implement the strategy. Their view was pretty much now that a story about the government was only really a story when it was a bad story, and that even when the facts didn’t fit the bad story, they were made to. It was a cultural shift, born of the impact of 24-hour news and the press, which had forced them to change their role. It required a strategic response but we spent hours over months talking about it without agreeing what that response was. Mine was to make them part of the debate, confront them with the reality that they are players as well as spectators. It was risky, it might make them worse, though it’s hard to see how much worse it could get. TB still seemed to think we could muddle along, charm and cajole a few from time to time, divide and rule. We were miles apart on this.

[Roy] Greenslade [journalist and former editor] had a piece on page 1 of the
Guardian
re the PCC, which was about as good as we could get in terms of where it was pitched. I knew the next few days were going to be grim. TB called as I was running through Green Park on the way in. He said if the press were going to say this was a climbdown, they would give the sense that the original stories were true, in which case we might as well have gone for a full PCC judgement. We released the letters, then Tom did the 11 and they were on the rampage. What was clearer than ever was that the
Mail
and the
Telegraph
were going to crank up into an even bigger gear in terms of going for me personally.